I know its unconventional but since I respecc'd to Affliction I've always PVP'd with my imp, I dont know why but it seems to work best for me. Silence is nice, devour magic is nice, I used to PVP with nothing BUT the felhunter (Until 2.0 basically). So I've spent the last 7 months or so PVP'ing with nothing but my imp, its nice to ignore him and use him as a mana battery.

Now, in my 5v5 we have a Paladin-Druid team and a Shaman-Priest team with 2 MS warriors, 2 3m Mages a SL Warlock and an Affliction warlock (me). Our "A" team had a 90% win ratio when I was using my imp because I could just ignore him and focus on our primary target and CC. All was going well and we gained about 300 rating in our first two weeks. So I changed my spec a tiny bit to pick up Shadowburn and Bane (was 41/15/5 for extra 6% healing received and 30 dmg, am now 43/7/11 for more raid DPS/Shadowburn) and decided I'd try to use my Felhunter again.

Big mistake. I felt spread too thin, I'd even spent the last week in AV roughly 16 hours a day when I wasn't raiding working on getting used to PVP'ing with my felhunter again. It wasn't working for me, I felt spread too thin, my pet gets CC'd and if I try to Dark Pact him in long fights he's useless for silence/remove magic. I figured oh well, I'll try it anyway in the Arena. Big mistake, again he was AoE Feared, killed, banished frequently and it left me feeling spread too thin again, I couldn't focus and concentrate. The result? 5 losses in a row. I can't figure out why, but it seems to me that when I'm trying to focus on what my pet is doing (or not doing) I'm not spending enough time focusing on what I should be doing. I've become so used to ignoring my imp and using him for long drawn out battles that now those same long battles see me dead way too fast with very little accomplished.

you simply need to spend more time learning to micro the felhunter. A well timed spelllock can make or break a game... much more so then a stamina boost. Devour is also handy... if its hard for you to micro it, just chuck it on auto-cast.

With respect to dark pact... although it saves your hp, you should get used to using life tap. Especially so if your affliction and are lucky enough not to get assist trained. Siphon life easily heals up the hp you lose from using life tap.

Oh also, as insignificant it can be, your felhunter can still auto-attack for around 200-300 white damage per hit. Not much but it adds up.

Nobody goes out of their way to Banish a Voidwalker most of the time. It can be used to interrupt people, kill totems, it acts as a nice, big mana reserve (its not like he needs it for anything), it can give you a 4k hp shield (with the talent) and suffering his a nice new debuff that might just save your life.

I was hardcore demonology for 2 years until 2.0 came out but I seem to have lost my ability to micro manage my pet somewhere in the last 7 months of not using it. From 60-70 I used nothing but my Imp, then levelled 2 more 70's (rogue/BE Paladin) and then went back to my warlock. I'm probably going to stick with it but I seem to die a lot faster/more often than I did with my imp and I can't figure out why. It doesn't make any logical sense. I spent the greater part of my time pre-TBC on my warlock PVP'ing (until my rogue hit 60) with my felhunter, then from 2.0 release to TBC release back PVP'ing 16 hours+ a day with my warlock-Felhunter. But from January to present I haven't had him out for more than a few seconds.

Wait what?

That's just weird then.

Though, I'm really not the guy to give advice about having to re-learn pet control - I respec probably 2-3x per month, always end up coming back to demonology. As much as people talk trash on the felguard, I really appreciate the ease of grinding, soloability, and controlled stuns you get w/ the pet.

Of note, learning to play w/ the felguard has taught me a lot better control of all the other pets. For example, previously I'd never bothered to bind "pet stay" and "pet attack", let alone aggressive, defensive or any of that other stuff. I just kinda stuck felhunter on priests and let him eat their buffs, and keep them crapping their pants about when I was going to blow a spell lock. However with all the added controls bound, I can have him attacking a mage (say), devouring off one target (or me) and spell locking another. It's pretty ridiculous what a well-played pet can do - as I'm sure you're aware.

More duels will probably be the best advice you'll get for the time being.

Funny, if I see a VW, the first thing I do is banish it so my Warrior (3v3s) can take a steamy dump on the Warlock. The only pet I really don't bother banishing are Felhunters for obvious reasons. Waste of time.

We did much better tonight, 5-0, kept my Felhunter out and just did the Set It and Forget It and then did what I normally did, I still think its mostly not worth it as he was banished a few times and usually ended up dead (especially if theres a hunter mage or warrior in the group, hunter always seems to target it, mages AOE kills it and warrior Whirlwind spam kills it) but it did harass the casters I put it on and silenced them quite a few times even when he was killed.

If your pet is dying too much try keeping him on passive and just having him follow you around. Definitely do not set Spell Lock and Devour Magic to "set it and forget it" (auto-cast?), that's wasting two amazing abilities. Use those two abilities like they're your own character's abilities but it just so happens that you can use them while casting other spells. Once you get comfortable with this then try throwing your pet out on enemy casters that can't be polymorphed, cycloned, or feared. It's good for the push back on their spells. However the pet staying alive so you can use its abilities is much more important than push back - which isn't needed anyway because you have a lot of crowd control in your group.

Between keeping fears up, keeping Curse of Tongues up, dispelling your party, spell locking, and trying to throw in some damage between all of these jobs Warlocks are one of the toughest classes to play - but in the end it is very rewarding.

Personally, I hate spell lock, and we generally burst down felhunters right away when we see them. It takes five seconds, and we're a healer-heavy endurance team that's built for long matches, so a few seconds at the start to take care of pets (hunter scorpid, etc.) is always well worth it in my eyes.

Against my team (admittedly not a true "top" team, but hovering around 2100ish which is at least respectable given that we all PvP with our raiding specs), an imp would get ignored and actually be able to contribute for the full duration of the fight, whereas a felhunter would be dead.

Sort of how I see it too. Even in 2v2's I burst down felhunters immediately. My scorpid gets focus fired nearly as often. If something is so good that it's going to completely change the match, and thus is removed in the first few seconds, then it ends up actually being useless(unless the 3-5s of distraction are a key strat of your's).

I guess it's backwards thinking, since felhunters are clearly superior pets than imps, but only if they stay alive. This can usually be solved in 2v2 and 3v3's by healers simply not being lazy about pets and healing them, but I imagine that in 5v5's the burst dps is just too much.

Ahh, I forgot to mention the spell lock and devour magic were not on auto cast, I use that to dispel sheep/fear from my paladin or other group mates if I can move fast enough, I usually set him to target someone like a shaman or priest, they tend to get nervous if he's even close to them.

One amusing note was last night we were having a bit of fun and ended up fighting a Horde team in Blades Edge, they tried to rush us via mounts but before they even dismounted I popped an InstaHoT. At the end of the match they were ALL dead in a very small pile on the bridge with the exception of the paladin who refused concede to our request so that we could take a screenshot. (He bubbled and ran back to the starting area to die). The next game we got them again and after smashing his team we decided to mana drain and wand the paladin to death while he spammed profanities at us. I still have no clue why he didn't just /afk or bubble or something but we wanded away about 10k health before the mage got impatient and fireblasted him.